I am writing to tell you that I wholeheartedly join other religious and civic leaders in calling on all parties involved in the dispute over the planned lower Manhattan Islamic community center and mosque to convert a situation that has sadly become ever more divisive into, as Archbishop Timothy Dolan recently stated, “an opportunity for a civil, rational, loving, respectful discussion.”
The plan to build this center is, without doubt, an emotionally highly-charged issue. But as a nation with tolerance and religious freedom at its very foundation, we must not let our emotions lead us into the error of persecuting or condemning an entire religion for the sins of its most misguided adherents.
The worldwide Islamic community is no more inclined to violence that any other. Within it, however, a struggle is going on ”“ between the majority who seek to follow a moderate, loving religion and the few who would transform it into an intolerant theocracy intent on persecuting anyone, Muslim or otherwise, with whom they disagree.
This is absurd. We have NEVER had religious freedom as part of our very foundation. Certainly not from the Puritans. The very reverse in fact. Time and the law have forced a truce, fortunately. You will not get “religious freedom” from a religion that declares that one can obtain Heaven through Christ alone.
Where did this notion come from? From the First? Indeed not, for this only speaks of the separation of church and state. We may be free to practice what religion we will, but this is not the same as saying that we can practice it WHEREVER we want. Think of the absurdities this would lead to. Imagine a “right” to set up a mosque on the front steps of the Washington cathedral or, heaven forbid, on the site of the Twin Towers itself.
Is the worldwide Islamic community no more inclined… etc? Why, yes it is inclined. The Shia and the Sunni have been at each others bloody throats for 1500 years and are not likely to call the bloodshed quits in the foreseeable future. Has there ever been a brutal internecine war that has lasted this long and which promises to go on indefinitely? And how many suicide bombers in how many countries and spreading?
The above is pious balderdash. The few? The few? A correction: The many. The evidence is everywhere – starting with Islam’s history.
Larry
Finally, some common sense.
“Moderate? Loving” Obviously, the good bishop hasn’t bothered to dig into Islam’s history, has he? He’s been drinking Kool Aid for too long.
China: Muslims are attacking atheists and Confucians
Philippines: Muslims are attacking Catholics
Indonesia: Muslims are attacking Hindus
Thailand: Muslims are attacking Buddhists
India: Muslims are attacking Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians
Iran: Muslims are attacking Baha’is
Iraq: Muslims are attacking Christians and the few remaining Jews
Israel: Muslims are attacking Jews
Egypt: Muslims are attacking Coptic Christians
Sudan: Muslims are attacking Anglicans and animists
Ethiopia: Muslims are attacking Coptic Christians
Kenya: Muslims are attacking Anglicans
Uganda: Muslims are attacking Anglicans
Chad: Muslims are attacking Catholics
Nigeria: Muslims are attacking Anglicans and Catholics
France: Muslims are attacking Jews, Christians, and atheists
Balkans: Muslims are attacking Orthodox
Turkey: Muslims are attacking Syrian Catholics
Russia: Muslims are attacking Orthodox
China: … oh, wait a minute.
[i]Everywhere[/i] Islam borders or surrounds people of another faith, it attacks. “Religion of Peace” my [i]Gluteus maximus[/i] !
Delusional:
[blockquote]
The worldwide Islamic community is no more inclined to violence that any other. Within it, however, a struggle is going on – between the majority who seek to follow a moderate, loving religion and the few who would transform it into an intolerant theocracy intent on persecuting anyone, Muslim or otherwise, with whom they disagree. [/blockquote]
Simply and willfully ignorant. The so-called moderates are in a tiny minority world-wide. Do they exist in America? You bet. I know many wonderful examples.
He is right about the need to tone down the rhetoric. Tea party anger is high precisely because the liberal lamestream media dismisses them as extremists while in fact they hold the majority view point. Now, we have the lamestream media dismissing as “racists”, “bigots” and “islamophobes” those who simply ask the organizers of the mosque community center to move it to a less inflammatory place. It ticks people off when they are in the 70% majority and are dismissed as extremist kooks.
Who needs to tone down the rhetoric? See the story and linked video of a holocaust survivor being cussed out and told he didn’t “learn enough” in concentration camps. (Very vulgar video.) [url=http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/08/lib-of-the-day-radical-progressive-cusses-out-holocaust-survivor-at-rally-says-he-didnt-learn-his-lesson/ ]Radical Leftist Cusses Out Holocaust Survivor at Rally- Says “He Didn’t Learn His Lessonâ€[/url]. We also had the case of the Muslim getting stabbed by what was described by the lamestream media as an islamophobe but it turns out that the perpetrator is a GZM supporter.
“We must never let our emotions lead us into the error of persecuting or condemning an entire religion for the sins of its most misguided adherents.”
Does that mean we can finally stop apologizing for the Crusades???
Bart Hall’s glib analysis demonstrates more ignorance than insight. It’s not like China has been kindly toward on its western side; or that the Orthodox were clean in their actions toward Muslims; or that the Lord’s Army is a polite Christian Eating Club. Or that Hindus haven’t don’t their fair share of Muslim-Bashing.
Not to diminish that in plenty of places, Muslims are uncomfortable with other religions. No need for us to start acting like them.
John: Every example you mention is an [i]exception[/i] within other faith groups. The Orthodox church is not attacking people along its entire periphery. Nor are Hindus. The simple fact is that Muslims ARE attacking along their entire periphery, and have been doing with considerable enthusiasm for a dreadfully long time.
You might, for example, look into what Albanians — generally rather easy-going Muslims (they drink wine and all) — did to Orthodox churches, schools, libraries and museums all across southern Serbia.
Mr. Wilkins’s glib “analysis”, #7, likewise demonstrates gross ignorance and no insight. Every faith expression has its practioners of violence. With Islam, however, violence is a Qu’ran mandated principle to be executed with prejudice against any and all who stand in the way of Islam’s way – entire genders, communities, cities, countries, societies… Violence is fundamental to Islam’s ethos. One need only look at Qu’ran and Islam’s founder’s history. What’s your position on Sharia, Mr. Wilkins?
The muslim community enjoys the freedoms of religion granted by this country’s Constitutuion. There are mosques spread all across the “fruited plain”. But, like any religous edifices, the precise locations of these things are subject to local zoning laws and other community considerations.
But how about in Mecca? Can anyone guess how many Christian Churches there are in Mecca? Hint: it is a positive integer located between zero and none.
Yes, #10, let’s be like Saudi Arabia!
The uninformed hatred and ignorance in these Muslim threads is frankly apalling. After three or four threads of this toxicity, I’m not taking the bait any longer. Learn what “love your neighbor” means.
What concerns me is the narrow vision and, perhaps intentional, blindness of this Episcopal bishop, and many others. Certainly there are many Americanized Muslims in the U.S. who do not directly support or even condone Islamist violence. This bishop takes his warm and happy idea, maybe based upon some nice Muslims he knows in liberal New York circles, and applies it indiscriminately to all Muslims everywhere, including in New York. Surveys are not always reliable, but many surveys of Muslims in multiple countries indicate that somewhere between 25% to 40% consider violence for Islam acceptable in some circumstances (the numbers are higher when talking about violence against Israelis). With a billion Muslims in the world, that’s a lot of people. To say that Islam is no more inclined to violence worldwide than any other group is blind, especially when the modifier is “worldwide.” Indeed, some members of Christian groups and Hindu groups and Buddhist groups, and others, have engaged in regional violence in recent decades. Islam is the only religion which has spawned recurrent worldwide violence in the same time period, as Bart Hall notes. Given arrests of several Islamist fanatics over bomb threats and attempts in New York City, the bishop should be aware of this.
“Lamestream (media)?” Now that’s a good word for Webster’s Dictionary! And appropriate, too!
If “love your neighbor” means to wish him well as one wishes onself well – as C.S.Lewis said – then I am willing to wish the American Muslims well. What I am NOT willing to do is ignore the piled evidence of Islam and institutionalized violence, the harshness of sharia law, the bloody intransigence of fanatical Muslims world wide who do not hesitate to blow up innocent Muslims in marketplaces and the potential danger for such Muslims – and their numbers are obviously very large – to do the US even more harm. Being Christian isn’t meant to be the same thing as being stupid and helpless.
Uninformed hatred? The very reverse. Unlike the pastor cited above, we have paid very close attention to the evidence.Larry
There are two issues: First and foremost, the mosque/community center’s location being so very insensitive that it is impossible for all but the most auto-delusional can buy into the line that the organizers were taken completely unawares at the backlash. Over 70% of Americans feel this way and yet the lamestream media try to portray those who oppose the building at the site as “extremists.”
The second issue is that the lamestream media has been completely duped in previous cases by “moderate” Muslims that talked in public about reconciliation in public and jihad in private. Should Americans be suspicious of Muslims? Of course. Turn on the news and hear the radical mullahs preaching hate of America. Look at 9/11, Fort Hood, etc. It would be insane to not be suspicious of Muslims in the abstract. That does not mean it affects our local relationships that we have in work or play. It is simply reality – ignored by the leftists – that the perpetrators of 9/11 and Fort Hood and others were Muslims.
Greg Gutfield has a [url=http://newsbusters.org/blogs/greg-gutfeld/2010/08/26/religion-called-tolerance#ixzz0xkWMEX7w ]fun article[/url] where he opens:
[blockquote] So AP writer Allen Breed begins his recent mosque piece by defining the word, “tolerance.” It’s a traditional rhetorical device, one learned back in sixth grade while plagiarizing the Encyclopedia Britannica.
His piece focuses on religion, of course, – but not Islam, Christianity or even my favorite, “the universal life force of the Grand Unicorn.”
His all powerful religion? Tolerance.
Of course, for him, tolerance can only play one way. As Yanks we must kneel before the alter of acceptance, while everyone else uses us as a footrest.
[/blockquote]